First weekend! Day 1

After the hectic 5 days of being fed up of seeing stinky wear the same shirt and pant, it was time for us to explore Germany and get rid of the 'stinking stinkyness'

Saturday morning, 4 of us left from Pali's place after the breakfast. The weather was very pleasant, just about 7 to 8 degrees may be. We started walking and had no specific place to go to. You have to be very careful while walking on the footpaths. The cyclists are not allowed on the road as they have a dedicated part of the footpath for them. We being Indians, didnt know that cyclists had a share in our footpath for their tires. A cyclist rang his bell and I didn't realize that he was asking for place for him to go past us, we thought he was ringing the bell on the road. People here are very kind. He stopped his cycle, called out for us and asked if he could go. Apologizing for our ignorance, we let him go and then were careful enough not to tread on their path.

The people who walk on Bangalore's footpath will find it very easy to walk here as there are no bikes honking for their way on the footpath! Did I say honking? I have never heard a horn blowing till now!! Yes, people never honk here. Strange. We honk just for fun or to inform somebody near a turning 'please dose hodibedi, ee kade inda naan bartaa ideeni' or to call a person who is one among 50 people on the road, i wonder how THAT person would get to know its a call for him.

But, our honking is fun. The people also are very silent here. Anywhere you go, unless you go very near to people who are in a conversation, you can not hear the usual chatters. People in the trains are also dead silent. So is the train! The sealed windows and doors don't let any sound to come inside and it is very boring inside the train to sit so silently.

Every road has a footpath in Buxtehude no matter how small it is. If thats the case with this small town, I'm sure the whole country will have the same kind of roads and footpaths. People follow the signals to cross the roads. That was really surprising to me. Nobody crosses the road even if its fully empty unless there is a green signal. When we were standing to cross the road, a passing thought struck my mind. In our country, how many times do we SEE the signal meant for people to cross, let alone following the signals? When big vehicles such as buses and cars don't bother to follow the signals, what are we talking about the pesky human beings on the roads.

The Buxtehude city is supposed to be a very old city, which has been built in the 17th or 18th century. During the world war II, this was one among the very few cities where no bombing happened. Two reasons. One, a rumor was spread everywhere in Germany that Hitler was near Buxtehude in a city called Stade [pronounced as staaday. Hey, I haven't told you how to pronounce Buxtehude. It is boo-ksti-hoo-dah] Another reason was that apple was grown only in Buxtehude during the war. Had they bombed this city, nobody could have got apples! This story was told by Pali to me, I don't know how much of it is true. Well, I leave this task for you. Learn the history and tell me, I'm very bad at it.

The main city area has streets made up of cobble stones. The buildings were built at least a century ago. Every city has a main administrative building called rathaus, it is the town-hall of the city. All the government buildings have a copper sulphate colored top portion which signifies that it is a government building. Beside the rathaus is the St. Petri's Cathedral which was constructed about 150 years ago. Unfortunately, the church was closed by the time we reached. I was told that people from all over the country come to this church to pray. Will visit the church again and then write about it.

While I'm writing this, its raining hailstones here. The weather has been pretty bad for a few days now. The hailstone rain then becomes ice-rain and then a snowfall. How I wish I can see all of these.

There is a stretch in this city where one can find the beautiful Margareta standing in river Elbe. Margareta is the last cargo ship that was used in Buxtehude. For the first time in my life, I saw a ship that closely. The road is on either side of this river. A few authentic German and Italian restaurants are alongside this river which I'm sure, will not have anything vegetarian. The place was very calm and clean needless to say.

The shops in the streets of Buxtehude are very attractive with the dazzling display of the products they sell. A direct replacement of Euro by Rupee would turn the situation very funny. A Mercedes Benz E class would cost 44,000 Rupees, A swatch watch would cost 140 Rupees, A Samsung HDTV would cost 2500 Rupees, A good formal shirt would cost 18 Rupees, A full suit would cost 249 Rupees. My God! Imagine if it were to be like this in India. And then there is the Euro shop where all the items cost around 1 Euro. A big packet of Snickers would cost 2 Rupees, A scented candle would cost 1.49 Rupees and the list goes on.

A simple multiplication of all these costs with 62 will give you an idea how much they would actually cost. Germany is no cheap. A haircut here costs 10 euros, thats 620 Rupees! I can have 20 haircuts done in Bangalore for that. People here value even a cent a lot. Not like us where we ignore 50 paise, its 30 rupees here!

After roaming around in the streets of Buxtehude, we all were hungry and it was time for us to search for a place where vegetarian food was available as 2 of us in the team do not eat non veg. After walking for 10 minutes, we barged into subway and ordered for a 6 inch sub with a coke. They have a free re-fill of the drink that you take, I had 2 servings of coke. One can re-fill any number of times any drink of his choice. But the weather does not allow you to take more than 2 servings. One of my colleagues came up with a whacky idea of having an ice cream in the 6 degree temperature! All of us agreed to her and we bought ice creams of our choice which cost anywhere between 25 cents to 1 euro. With the ice cream in one hand and German goodies that everybody had shopped in another hand, we all went to a park to spend some time.

The river Elbe infront of the benches in the park was just amazing. The ducks in Elbe came very near to us. The water is dirty in Germany too!! The German government has built small 'houses' for the ducks to stay and these white ducks keep roaming around the river all day long. The cool breeze, the sun setting and the ice cream... it was just a perfect way to spend an evening.

The temperature was going down and we all started feeling very cold. It was time for us to leave. A beautiful day in a beautiful city, I really could not believe that I saw all this with my eyes. A wonderful experience that I can not forget. Buxtehude, a place to visit!